Williams: Higher education has lost sight of some of its mission

According to College Board, average tuition and fees for the 2013-14 school year totaled $30,094 at private colleges, $8,893 for in-state residents at public colleges and $22,203 for out-of-state residents. Many schools, such as Columbia University and George Washington University, charge yearly tuition and fees close to $50,000.

Faced with the increasing costs of higher education, parents and taxpayers might like to know what they’re getting for their money.

Campus Reform documents outrageous behavior at some colleges. Mark Landis, a former accounting professor at San Francisco State University, frequently entertained students at his home. He now faces 15 charges of invasion of privacy. Police say he was discovered with dozens of graphic videos he had made of students using his bathroom.

Mireille Miller-Young — professor of feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara — recently pleaded no contest to charges of theft of banners and assault on a pro-life protester last March.

Every so often, colleges get it right, as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign did when it withdrew its teaching offer to Steven G. Salaita. He had used his Twitter account to tell followers they are awful human beings if they support Israel, saying he supports the complete destruction of Israel, as well as calling for the decolonization of North America.

Then there are some strange college courses. At Georgetown University, there’s a course called Philosophy and Star Trek, in which professor Linda Wetzel explores questions such as, “Can persons survive death?” and “Is time travel possible? Could we go back and kill our grandmothers?”

At Columbia College Chicago, there’s a class called Zombies in Popular Media. The course description reads, “Daily assignments focus on reflection and commentary, while final projects foster thoughtful connections between student disciplines and the figure of the zombie.”

West Coast colleges refuse to be left behind the times. University of California, Irvine physics professor Michael Dennin teaches The Science of Superheroes, in which he explores questions such as, “Have you ever wondered if Superman could really bend steel bars?” and “Would a ‘gamma ray’ accident turn you into the Hulk?” and “What is a ‘Spidey-sense’?”

The average person would think the major task of colleges is to educate and advance human knowledge. The best way to do that is to have competition in the marketplace of ideas. But Michael Yaki, head of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, disagrees. During a July 5 briefing on sexual harassment law in education, Yaki explained college free-speech restrictions are necessary because adolescent and young-adult brains process information differently than adult brains.

Fortunately, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has waged a successful campaign against college restrictions on free speech. Some of its past victories include eliminating restrictions such as Bowdoin College’s ban on jokes and stories “experienced by others as harassing;” Brown University’s ban on “verbal behavior” that produced “feelings of impotence, anger or disenfranchisement,” whether “unintentional or intentional;” the University of Connecticut’s absurd ban of “inappropriately directed laughter;” and Colby College’s ban on any speech that could lead to a loss of self-esteem.

Some colleges sought to protect female students. Bryn Mawr College banned “suggestive looks,” and “unwelcome flirtations” were not allowed at Haverford College.

Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE and author of “Unlearning Liberty,” argues campus censorship is contributing to an atmosphere of stifled discourse. In 2010, an Association of American Colleges and Universities study found only 17 percent of professors strongly agreed with the statement it is “safe to hold unpopular positions on campus.”

Only 30 percent of college seniors strongly agreed with that statement. The First Amendment Center’s annual survey found a startling 47 percent of young people believe the First Amendment “goes too far.”

The bottom line is many colleges have lost sight of their basic educational mission of teaching young people critical thinking skills, and they’re failing at that mission at higher and higher costs to parents and taxpayers.

WALTER E. WILLIAMS is a professor of economics at George Mason University. His column is distributed by Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045.

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"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." Jonathan Swift "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." Groucho Marx

I agree that the inflation of college tuitions and fees has been many times higher than the rate of inflation other areas of life. In Texas, I'm pretty sure we can lay credit for that on the goTPs who deregulated and fairly consistently cuts funding levels for higher education. Our student numbers keep going up, but the funding tends to remain the same or be reduced, which means it costs more per student. That's not to mention the cuts to things like health care coverage.

After that, he makes less sense, using a few examples of profs going too far in one direction or another trying to make a point, while actually making the point that profs who go too far tend to get punished for it.

As far as profs trying to make things relevant to today's students, I think the key here is context. Students are interested, involved, and knowledgeable about popular trends. Building upon that base of interest and knowledge makes it easier to expand what they already know and understand to other aspects of their life.

Take "True Blood" for instance. I don't watch TB, but it is a basic story of a feared, misunderstood, and oppressed minority. A lot of students who understand what is happening to the vampire minority in TB, might not see how this work of fiction parallels the experience of other minorities within OUR society.

I'm pretty sure that Mr. Williams would be much happier if higher education produced nothing but MBAs, whose basic drive was how to produce the highest profits for their companies, without consideration of negative impacts caused by their quest for the highest profits.

I do have problems with free speech restrictions, but not so much the right of some to harass others without fear of negative consequences.

Tech has free speech protections, but Tech had nothing at all to say when the Young Conservatives of Texas were playing "Catch the Illegal Aliens" game on campus. Maybe they can play "Catch the Poor, Pregnant Single Moms", or "Catch the LGBTs" in the future.

I have had more than one student thank me for changing the way they viewed the LGBT community or women and feminism, so I have to plead guilty for promoting the understanding of the disparities between groups and classes, and acceptance and appreciation of individual and cultural diversity within OUR overall society.

I imagine that there were blacks who stood up against equal civil rights for blacks, as some still do. I know that there were women who fought equal rights for women, as some still do. I wonder where Mr. Williams stood on things back in the 50s and 60s. Was he toadying to the Man back then also?